Horseplay.

 

Having a bit of a horse themed weekend. I downloaded this game for iPad a few weeks ago called, "My Horse." I just remembered yesterday to show it to Lauren, and now she's obsessed with it. You can do all kinds of fun things to take care of your horse like mix its feed, dress it up in tack, and enter it into competitions. It's just like having a real one, without the smell and the expense.



I've had this shot in mind for over a year now. Mark wants to sell our antique horse because we currently don't have a place to display it. However, he's forbidden to do so until I've exhausted its use as a photo prop. Since today's challenge was "Begins with B," I thought it was about time to put on my boots and saddle up.

Speaking of begins with "B," I'm so sad that we didn't make our usual trek to this weekend's Great Geauga County Antique Show in Burton, Ohio. This was the first in at least the last nine years that we didn't go. However, yesterday afternoon was Lauren's first swimming lesson, so we felt that it was more important for us to be there, rather than have my parents take her while we went to Ohio for the day.

Since this summer she taught herself how to hold her breath underwater, we signed her up for Level 2. As I watched the lesson, I began to freak out inside because they were really challenging her by asking her to try things she hadn't before, like floating on her back and using a kick board. On top of that, some of the instructors were high school students, and I was skeptical that Lauren was going to try any of these things with an unfamiliar teenaged boy coaching her. At one point, I even wondered if maybe the instructors would recommend that she move to Level 1, because most of the Level 2 students seemed to be relatively proficient. I sat there reminding myself that it was my job to push her to do things outside of her comfort zone, even though I was very uncomfortable watching it.

At the end of the class, they lined up all the kids so they could jump feet first into the deep end of the pool. Some of the kids were even brave enough to jump off the diving board! I couldn't get Lauren to jump into the shallow end of our community pool, so I thought that there was no way she was going to do it.

Soon it was her turn. She stepped up to the edge of the pool and paused for a little bit.

Then she jumped.

I practically cheered out loud. When her turn came up a second time, she did it again.

When lesson was over, I came down from the spectator area to meet her. I asked her, "That couldn't have been my little daughter that I saw jumping into the deep end of the pool, was it?"

She exclaimed with a big smile, "Yeah - I did it twice, and I wanted to do it three times!"

I'd say she's Level 2 alright.